I found an interesting article on Yahoo Finance named “Five Secrets Your Bank Doesn’t Want You to Know” which goes into detail about how your bank or credit union may be playing dirty little tricks on you to initiate unnecessary overdraft fees! Especially if you’re in the middle income class.
First I’d like to say that I keep extensive written records of exactly how much my AVAILABLE balance is at the Credit Union every time I use my debit card whether it be for a credit transaction OR a debit transaction and they have been charging me overdraft fees when I know damn good and well the money is available.
I also check the online banking system computer quite frequently.
I’ve written them about this overdraft fee thing several times and all they can say is “We can cancel your overdraft protection if you wish.” but they NEVER give me a reason why their records are screwed up. They just keep repeating the same thing over and over to me like a broken fuckin record!
Here’s the thing: Their online banking computer reports credit transactions in a separate section where the transaction is “on hold” then when the hold is released it is supposed to be reported in the main section where all my recent transactions are recorded for me to examine.
While a transaction is on hold the computer reports my regular balance on the left hand side. And on the right hand side it reports my AVAILABLE balance which is my regular balance MINUS the transactions that are on hold.
Okay you with me so far?
Once a couple of days has gone by the transactions which were reported as on hold will completely disappear and my AVAILABLE balance misleads me to believe that I have more money available that I actually have.
Here’s an example: Say I have $180 dollars in the bank and I do a credit transaction for gas in the amount of $30 dollars. Then when I go check my balance at the online banking website that night when I get home it will say my balance is $180 and my AVAILABLE balance is $150 because of the transaction on hold. (180 minus 30 equals 150).
2 days later I check my account again and the transaction for the $30 dollars in gas has completely disappeared and the online banking computer says my AVAILABLE balance is $180 dollars again. What the hell kinda of messed up BS is that! If there’s a transaction on hold it should NEVER EVER EVER just DISAPPEAR and misreport my AVAILABLE balance!
Okay so my $30 dollar gas transaction has vanished for 2 days and I think I have 180 bucks in the bank.
So then I decide to go to the store and purchase an item for $160 dollars. THEN the $30 dollars I spent for gas 4 days ago FINALLY gets processed (with the wrong transaction date mind you) and the banking computer reports that I have overdrawn my account in the amount of $10 dollars so they charge me a $43 dollar Bounce Free Payment Fee. Then I owe the bank $53 dollars!
This is Un-Freaking-Believable!
I discovered why this is happening and this article from Yahoo Finance explains it all. Please read it now: Five Secrets Your Bank Doesn’t Want You to Know
Here is a letter I wrote to my bank after reading this article:
Subject:
Some people may be catching on to your banks little tricks.
Body:
I’ve suspected that I’ve been taken advantage of every once in awhile by being charged overdraft fees that my written records have indicated that I should NOT have been charged for and now I’m almost certain after reading an article from financial experts at Yahoo.com and carefully analyzing the way your online banking computer operates and manipulates my funds.
I just wanted to let you know what I’ve learned from this article and that I’m starting to lose my trust in banking institutions including the credit unions.
You may want to read this article and forward it to your regional manager: http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/moneyhappy/181074
I will be forwarding this article to the thousands of people who visit my blogs and websites each month.
I’m not trying to accuse anyone of anything I just want to let you know I have my suspicions because of this article at http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/moneyhappy/181074
Also: This doesn’t mean I want to close my account or withdraw from my overdraft protection or anything. I just wanted to share this information with you so that you’ll know that I’m not in the dark anymore about why I’ve been charged so many overdraft fees when my records have indicated that I should not have been charged these fees and I WILL be taking steps to prevent this from ever happening again.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Bill Watson
I can’t WAIT to see how they respond!
Anyways I just wanted to let you guys know about this so if you’re having these same kinds of problems the best way to fix it is to make sure your bank has a program that makes it easy (and free) to shift funds from savings to checking to protect against overdrafts and load up your savings account with some padding money just for this purpose.
I hope this helps clear up some banking issues for everyone. I know it has for me.
L8rZ
Bill
Tags: Banking, Conspiracies by Bill
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